


Plans, Truths, and Certainties

by Transposable_Element



Series: Love and Honor [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Cultural Differences, Family, Gen, Political Alliances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1880544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Returning to Calormen after reconciling with his daughter, Kidrash plans his next moves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plans, Truths, and Certainties

Kidrash paced the aft deck of the Calormene merchant vessel Goldenwing. In the last fifteen days he had accomplished a great deal, not without difficulty or compromise. He thought of himself as an open-minded and adaptable man, but during this sojourn these qualities had been tested. He admitted to himself that it was a relief to be surrounded once again by Calormenes, to feel confident that he knew where he stood in relation to each person he saw or spoke to. But the main purpose of his visit had been achieved: he had reconciled with Aravis. He knew that his daughter was well and happy, and although he was still uncomfortable with many aspects of the life she was leading, he knew that things could have been much worse.

He would settle upon Aravis a dowry equal to the one he had offered to Ahoshta: 20,000 crescents (luckily he had managed to delay paying the double dowry Ahoshta demanded in lieu of a bride until Ahoshta was out of the way and the matter became moot). In Archenland, such a sum would be a fortune indeed. He planned to suggest that Aravis use part of it to refurbish the palace in Armouth. Archenland could become much more prosperous if it developed its port, especially after restoring trade with Calormen, and moving court to Armouth was a necessary first step. Queen Susan had approved his suggestion of horses as a gift for King Lune. He would have to think carefully about the horses most suited to the country's mountainous terrain.

One thing that he did regret was that Aravis had embarked on a path clearly incompatible with the life of a scholar. Kidrash had always hoped that one of his children—one of Veledis’s children—would become a scholar. Even before the death of his elder son, Aravis had been the most likely prospect. Rishti, he knew, did not have the right temperament. That left Tirivis, who was young, and the daughter of his second wife, whose name he never spoke if he could help it. Well, whatever else she had been, his second wife had been no fool. There was no obvious reason Tirivis should not become a scholar. It was time for him to cease childishly shunning the girl who looked so like her mother. It was time to become a real father to her, to learn what was in her and help to bring it forth. If there was one thing Kidrash had learned since he received his daughter's letter, it was the peril of not attending to the ties of blood and of love. He had driven away one daughter. He must not make the same mistake again. 

He knew there were other ties that he had neglected and that must be renewed. He had two step-sons and a step-daughter, Veledis’s children from her first marriage, but he had seen little of them since her death. His step-son Vardash had been the lord of Tanadar Province since coming to his majority more than 25 years ago. Vardash Tarkaan’s politics, influenced by his mother, were sound, and before his mother’s death they had often worked together (Kidrash supposed the northerners would find it odd that he had a stepson only six years younger than himself, but among Calormene nobility there was nothing unusual about this). Of Abbanis, his step-daughter, he knew little except that her first husband was still alive, though old and frail, and that, in the tradition of the women of Veledis’s family, she had pursued the study of mathematics. She was now 38, possibly too old to make an advantageous second marriage to a young tarkaan, even if her husband were to die tomorrow. Still, she undoubtedly had some influence over her husband while he lived, and in time, as a widow and the mother of tarkaans, she might wield considerable power, if she wished to. His other step-son, Ilgarath, was also some sort of scholar. An alchemist, perhaps? He really ought to know. As a younger son, he was unlikely to be especially useful, but one never knew.

Aravis had given him a letter to her friend Lasaraleen Tarkheena, which had reminded Kidrash of the existence and potential usefulness of the girl’s husband. He was the rather drab younger son of a minor tarkaan, but he had made a fortune in trade and later become a powerful financier with many ties to functionaries within the Tisroc’s exchequer. Like most traders and financiers, he was willing to exploit the opportunities of war but tended to prefer peace and the stability it brought, making him another potential ally, one whom Kidrash ought to have thought of long before this. And Lasaraleen, if rumor was to be believed, had her own array of contacts among the younger tarkaans at court, although if he were ask her to make use of these for political gain he would have to approach her without her husband’s knowledge. He hoped she would not interpret this as a sexual advance.

Now he was building new alliances in the north, with the two Narnian kings (Edmund acting on behalf of his brother most of the time); with Aravis’s young consort, who was proving to have more potential than it had at first appeared; and even with King Lune, who was unsophisticated but had the great virtues of reliability and honesty—virtues that Kidrash valued in other men, if not always striving to embody them himself. Kidrash tried to think of Lune without condescension. The man had a kind of simple, direct intelligence, and Kidrash had come to admire his careful stewardship of his resources, including what was probably his most valuable resource, the goodwill of his subjects. Archenland was a poor country, but the king managed it well and was very popular. 

And there was Queen Susan. How entirely wrong his assumptions about her had been! For the first time in many years he had met a woman who could compare with Veledis. Though she did not have Veledis’s intellectual heft, she had insight and subtlety. How it must have galled her to be fooled by Rabadash; but she had been young, and influenced by her brother. Kidrash could not condemn her for it—he himself had made a disastrous mistake in choosing his second wife, when he was all of 40 years old. Now the queen must be nearly the age that Veledis had been when they married. She had come from another world, risen to be a queen, and navigated the politics and strange sexual mores of the north to build for herself a position similar to that of the most powerful widows in Calormen, without ever marrying. In her own way, she was a genius. And, of course, extremely beautiful.

Kidrash planned to spend most of the time between now and his daughter’s wedding gathering his coalition together. It was time to sound out Rabadash with his proposal. No doubt the prince would be surprised, but with his father dying, he would be motivated to accept. The diplomatic potential of Aravis’s marriage to the Crown Prince of Archenland would provide a good excuse for Rabadash to advance Kidrash. 

There were significant matters still unresolved. Aravis had asked him, as a wedding present, to free Rodit and keep him on at the estate as a pensioner. It was a symbolic gesture, as the man was virtually a pensioner already, but it seemed to mean a great deal to Aravis, so he had agreed. But he worried about the issue of slavery. Kidrash had always prided himself on being a good master: he strove to be just; he did not employ gratuitously cruel punishments; he did not overwork his slaves; he did not tolerate rape of his slaves by freemen; he endeavored not to sell slaves away from their families; he allowed them to buy their freedom if they had the means. But he knew that to the northerners, this was not enough. In fact, it was the bare minimum that they expected of him in order to consider any kind of alliance. It was frustrating, a cultural and political gulf that might be impossible to bridge. Surely they must realize that abolition was politically impossible, though the system could stand reform. Some of the western and southern provinces of Calormen used a system of indenture, rather than chattel slavery, and it might be possible to spread this practice in other parts of the empire. But he suspected this would not be enough for his new northern allies, either. A problem to be put away until the time was ripe, he decided.

Veledis’s ambition had been to make Kidrash Grand Vizier by the time he was 40. With her early death, that effort had failed, but now he thought it more than likely that he would become Grand Vizier before the year was out. He felt more hopeful than he had in a long time, perhaps even since Veledis’s death. In two days he would be in Tashbaan, where he could begin to put his plans into motion. 

**Author's Note:**

> "...until Ahoshta was out of the way" is a reference to the events of "A Traitor's Death."


End file.
